Video Game / Death and Taxes

Everything living has to die
But to die you need not apply
We'll find you
When your time's through
Take a number, wait in line
Live your life and we'll be right behind you
Nothing's certain but death and taxes
So I guess you'd better get some practice
Nothing's certain but death and taxes
So I guess you'd better
So I guess you'd better

— The Stupendium, "REST EMPLOYED | Death and Taxes Song!"

Death and Taxes is a game created by Placeholder Gameworks and was officially released on February 20, 2020 on both Itch.io and Steam, and on Nintendo Switch on September 10, 2020.

You play as the Grim Reaper — or, at least, a grim reaper with a more local remit. Fate, "the keeper of world order" and your boss, has created you through arcane magic to choose life or death for the people of the Sun County of Cosmopolis City, whose impact on (or absence from) the world may have potentially vitally important and far-reaching consequence. You are given daily instructions that you can choose to follow or not follow at your discretion and then observe the world as the results of your choices play out throughout the game.

For the trope about death and taxes, see The Three Certainties in Life.

---

This game provides examples of:

• 13 Is Unlucky: On your 13th day of the job, the cat will steal all your paperwork, preventing you from making a choice that day... that is, unless you bribed her with a chew toy from the merchant prior to this moment. However, if you've pissed her off by being insistent with trying to play with her, she will steal your papers, toy gerbil or not.
• Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: Each time you purchase a Lethean Obliviator, the price for the next one increases, to a max of $2000 each.
• Akashic Records: The Archive was created to record all knowledge and has expanded massively over time, eventually becoming conscious and growing of its own accord.
• All-Powerful Bystander: The pirate merchant, who not only sells treasure with significant power (like a snow globe which shows the current world state), but also enables New Game Plus with a dimension-hopping coin.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • In addition to your smartphone updates regarding previous impacts and upcoming events, you can collect several widgets that help remove the obfuscations involved with how your choices impact the world. The snowglobe gives you a brief overview on the world's parameters, while the lamp shows how sparing or killing an individual (if you've done so before) will influence each of the world's aspects. The latter also remembers your decisions across separate playthroughs so you can speed through repeat runs and get the other endings easily.
  • When you start a New Game Plus, you'll get an abbreviated version of the opening cutscene leading up to your Reaper's creation, or you can skip the cutscene entirely and get to work rightaway.
  • Any currency you have on hand will regularly make a sighing noise, but if you tuck them into your desk you won't have to deal with it.
  • For any multiple choice answer, you're given options to help skip dialogues faster by prompting the person you speak to to cut the chatter.
• Apocalypse How: There are four general apocalypses based on having a critical score in one category with eight unique apocalypses caused by specific individuals being spared or killed.
• Artifact of Doom: It's possible for Grim to create one of these by killing the proper people. starting with an old retiree who is in possession of a priceless necklace that is slated to be left to her spoiled children in the event of her death, kill her and it's transferred over to a receptionist who's caught the eye of an interesting individual, kill her and it falls into possession of a pawn shop owner who murdered the receptionist for it and claims he felt oddly compelled to, kill him and it transfers over to another individual who murdered the pawn shop owner for it and states the necklace 'demanded blood', kill them and the cycle continues with every profile becoming more obsessive over the necklace and it's supposed bloodlust.
• Balancing Death's Books: If Grim kills too many or too few people they'll be fired. However, if the Grim balances killing too many and too few on different days, the number "balances out" and the Grim avoids being fired.
• Bilingual Bonus: The Flavor Text when you mouse over the lamp has a chance to be Γενηθήτω φώς, which according to Wikipedia is part of the Greek translation of the phrase "let there be light" from Genesis 1:3.
• Bittersweet Ending: The Usurper ending has a rather grim tone even if you've saved the world and taken Fate's role. However much you defend your actions, Chimaera notes that what you did was still achieved through deliberate murder of another being and that this is a bad sign of what you will do in the future.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: Chimaera always concludes their conversations with "Be seeing You." One possible dialogue choice as the month draws to a close lets you use it on them, to their confusion.
• Brick Joke: Depending on how you answer Fate's "death and taxes" question, Cerri will have your response on the drinks menu on the last 2 days. If you then order the drink, if it's different than the normal idiom it shows up on the title screen after the run concludes, and on your desk as a spirit regardless if the answer's correct or not.
• Cats Are Mean: Fate's cat tends to be malicious at times, such as when she steals your paperwork on the 13th. She's also very abusive with the rubber gerbil if you give it to her, and appears fully aware it has a spirit inside.
• Celestial Bureaucracy: Above the mortal reality exists a vast bureaucracy dedicated to maintaining the Equilibrium of existence by managing death. A department exists for the death of all things, from plants all the way up to galaxies.
• Cessation of Existence: Members of the bureaucracy who are either fired or whose department is closed down simply cease to exist. Mortals on the other hand do have an afterlife, though the details are vague.
• Character Customization: Offered at the beginning of the game. Once you buy a mirror, you can change your appearance pretty much whenever you like, and it's reflected in both cutscenes and your sprite in the elevator.
• Chess with Death: Briefly discussed with Fate in a conversation. Fate is slightly bemused at the thought.
• Choice-and-Consequence System: The very premise of the game is to make choices about the fate of characters based upon dossiers that have been provided to you by Fate via a fax machine. Directly, each death effects four world parameters (Health, Ecology, Prosperity, and Peace); indirectly, many choices will impact the lives of other characters and bring them to your desk.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: A lot of the game is Deliberately Monochrome, but Fate's bowtie and dialogue are yellow, and his cat's collar and "dialogue" are blue. Cerberus's bar and her dialogue has tinges of red.
• Creative Closing Credits: If you've chosen to end your run proper, you're taken to the credits where each developer has a profile that you have to spare or kill. There's achievements for sparing or killing everyone.
• Crystal Ball: The Threnody to Desolation is a snowglobe which depicts the current state of the world.
• Cuteness Proximity: For the week where you're left alone with Lady Pawdington, you have a few dialogue options where you succumb to this trope and try to pet her. Do this enough and you earn an achievement — and end up provoking her.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • Triggering a special apocalypse would seem an unrecoverable act but with luck and careful management it is possible to pull the world out of a critical state regardless. Fate has special lines to acknowledge this, and also if you do the reverse.
  • If you fling an item off your desk, it's put back in the center of your desk.
  • If you act according to Fate's whims but still stop his plan, he'll acknowledge it in the ending and you have the option to say you messed up somewhere in trying to end the world.
• Diegetic Interface: The Threnody to Desolation is the closest thing to a UI in tracking the current state of the world. It has four sections — a tree, residence, peace flag, and group of people — representing the main parameters of the world. When marking a profile indicators will appear to show which parameters changed and how.
• Disaster Dominoes: Your choice to spare or kill certain individuals can go on to cause calamities later on.
• Do Well, But Not Perfect: One of the toughest endings to obtain is the Balanced end, which requires enough positive stats to avoid Chaos, but also enough negative stats to avoid Utopia.
• Dug Too Deep: Sparing an archaeologist planning to dig for ruins in permafrost causes him to unleash buried viruses.
• Fate Worse than Death: According to Fate, the job itself, since you'll never be able to retire as long as life exists. Additionally, in a certain ending, you lose your job when all mortal life does end, and are doomed to non-existence.
• Foreshadowing: The Grim receives detailed instructions and meets with Fate every day to discuss their performance. Only halfway through the game does the player learn this is unusual when another Grim reveals they have never met with Fate or been given detailed instructions, hinting that Fate has larger plans for the Grim.
• Formally-Named Pet: Lady Pawdington, Fate's cat.
• Ghost Pirate: Mortimer was captain of a pirate ship prior to his death which went on many adventures. After dying he took to selling his treasures to Grims.
• Golden Ending: The achievement "Goodest Ending" is rewarded for the "best" possible ending — utopia conditions in the world and Fate peacefully passing his role on to the Grim.
• The Grim Reaper: Literally your name and job description, although it differs from the classic definition of the Grim Reaper in that you are created at the start of the game and are not unique (in fact, you are assigned a random number upon the game's beginning). You even can get an achievement for assembling the classic Grim Reaper appearance.
• Hammerspace: You'd be surprised at the number of things you can fit in your drawers. There's even an achievement for stuffing everything — even the fax machine — inside!
• Heads or Tails?: Mortimer sells a coin with the skull and ankh motif of the profiles; you can flip it to decide who lives and dies if you like.
• It's a Wonderful Failure: Even once the world is past the point of recovery, the Grim must continue marking profiles as Chimaera and Fate comment on the impending doom. This culminates on Day 28 when Grim receives the profile for the last living human and must mark them for Death.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Chimaera does this to varying levels, hinting that the player is actually dead and now exists as the Grim, or speaking past Grim to the person beyond the screen.
• Lemony Narrator: Occasionally one of the profiles the Grim receives will show a bit of sarcastic wit. One example is if on Day 9 the Grim receives a profile for a blade of grass. The person writing its summary spends the last bit of it ranting about how ridiculous it is to need to write one for every blade of grass.
• Living Toys:
  • The rubber gerbil you can buy from Mortimer has a spirit bound inside it. If you give it to Lady Pawdington, it will squeak mournfully as the cat torments it.
  • Cerri gives the Grim a piggy bank which has a similar magical life. Feeding it coins will cause it to bulk up and eventually spawn a piglet bank.
• Magical Guide: Chimaera does their best to warn Grim away from destruction and also opens the Usurper route by sending modified profiles.
• Mercy Kill:
  • Some deaths full under this, such as an old man waiting for death to finally claim him.
  • In the event of an apocalypse, on the last day the Grim will receive a profile for the last human. Fate approves marking them for Death as there's no need to prolong their suffering.
• Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: The Grim can quite accidentally doom the entire world by sparing or killing the wrong person and has dialogue options to protest that it wasn't their fault. This trope doubles in the event the Grim dooms the world despite avoiding Fate's trap.
• Motive Rant: Fate will launch into a monologue about his plan and what has driven him to it if given the chance. In New Game Plus you have the option to point out you already know and he'll be rather put out that he won't get the chance to do the speech he's been preparing all this time.
• Multiple Endings: There are different potential world states depending on who lives and dies. As for your own story, it ends in one of two ways: either the world ends, and you're doomed to fade into oblivion, or you become the next Fate, either by force or him passing the torch. In total, 30 different endings can be obtained.
• My God, What Have I Done?: In the good endings, Fate realizes that he broke the rules and almost led humanity to its end, and appoints you a better fit for his job.
• New Game Plus: On completing a playthrough, Mortimer appears and offers to send the Grim to the start of a new timeline to try again. Accepting means that all items and costumes previously acquired are carried over and there are also special dialogue options based on the Grim's previous experiences.
• Non-Standard Game Over:
  • If the Grim does really poorly during their first two weeks, Fate sends them a profile for themselves. Choosing "Death" quits to the menu screen.
  • If you break Fate's rules one too many times, he'll be done with you and kill you instantly during your assessment.
• Noodle Implements: Fate creates you, the latest spawn, via common ingredients from the store like lemons and ice (and human eyeballs). How is left to the imagination.
• Noodle Incident: Fate tells Grim not to ask about the Plant Department and the exact cause of their breakdown on Day 9 is never explained.
  • Cerberus's Den adds an NPC that has dialogue that explains the things that lead up to the department's breakdown the day before. With enough prodding, he reveals that they were planning on unleashing a fungus that would cause a full on zombie apocalypse, without the approval of upper management. It can be inferred that the breakdown of the plant department likely had to do with the fallout from that plot resulting in upper management 'disciplining' the plant department; leaving you to pick up the slack.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: After you've reset and taken the New Game Plus option, the Reaper definitely knows Fate's plan. This doesn't stop the player from choosing the same dialogue options from the last run all while subverting his plan, and when new dialogue directly related to his plan being thwarted comes up for the first time, you are still given dialogue options where you play clueless and innocent to what he's been trying to do.
• Opaque Lenses:
  • You never see Fate's eyes behind his glasses.
  • Depending on character customization, you can have these too. Some of the lenses look normal in the character customization screen, but will appear opaque when your character rides the elevator. Your character's glasses overlap with Scary Shiny Glasses, with their white glow and the protagonist being the Grim Reaper.
• Piggy Bank: Cerri uses one as a tip jar and gives another to the Grim to store their earnings. Filling it with coins will cause it to bulk up and eventually spawn a smaller piggy.
• Player Personality Quiz: In Cerberus's Den, Cerri gives you a quiz and makes you a drink based on your personality.
• Pointy-Haired Boss: Fate. He initially seems competent, and explains the reasons for the rules and why the Equilibrium is in place, and while it may be unfeeling at times, it's a policy in place to preserve humanity. However, it's not long before he starts acting erratically, such as leaving his cat in charge of the office while he's gone on business, leaves for a spur of the moment vacation, and spends your evaluation meetings contemplating becoming an author. This is intentional. He hates his job and wants it to end, by any means necessary.
• Press X to Die: Complain enough about your job and the Grim receives their own profile. Mark Death and the run ends.
• Punny Name: Lady Pawdington, Fate's cat.
• Puny Earthlings: Fate expresses this towards humanity, pointing out that no matter how special they may think themselves, they are fleeting beings in the totality of existence.
• Pyrrhic Victory: If you get the Usurper end but the world is set on a path to destruction, Chimaera reminds you that the world is still doomed and you can't do anything about it.
• Red Sky, Take Warning: When a parameter reaches a critical level, the sky outside Grim's tower and in the Threnody of Destruction both turn red.
• Resurrective Immortality: When working in the office you may come across an interesting individual; since no matter how many times you sign them off to die they will simply keep coming back with their profile writer getting more and more confused and frustrated every time. After bringing up the problem with Fate (in which he wont believe you and thinks you're joking) you and the profile writer come to the conclusion that he's an immortal demon, who uses his never-ending life to modify bicycles for as long as he wants. There's an achievement for discovering this oddity.
• Right-Hand Cat: Fate owns one, and even leaves her in charge of monitoring you for a week when he's too busy. Grim inherits the cat if he peacefully replaces Fate.
• Sadistic Choice: You're given a quota of deaths to meet, and based on extra rules you may find yourself in this situation as you ponder over who's worth killing or sparing. The game lets you Take a Third Option by defying Fate's rules and doing as you please, at the cost of not getting paid, and defying Fate too brazenly will end the game prematurely.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: You can get these for your character through character customization. Even if the lenses look normal in the mirror where you customize yourself, they get the opacity and white glow in your often-seen sprite in the elevator.
• Shout-Out:
  • One panel in the opening cutscene involves Fate performing an Abbey Road Crossing on the way to the store.
  • An outfit that closely resembles Hitman's Agent 47 is labelled "Assassin." You can complete the look by selecting a bald skull for your head.
  • The Ears of the Beast add a selection of cat-eared heads to your character design options. The description, however, has a Take That! to the film adaptation of a musical.
  • One of the outfits, a green suit with a red bowtie, is called "Bowties Are Cool", an outfit and catchphrase of the Eleventh Doctor from Doctor Who.
  • The choice of being a white-haired, bearded man is "Geralt", resembling the protagonist of The Witcher.
  • One of the outfits — a radical, red-and-white calavera — is called Brujah.
  • One of the outfits is a white suit with a black bow tie titled "Manny", a reference to Manny’s casino outfit in Grim Fandango. Fitting, considering Manny is a Grim Reaper himself.
  • Cerberus's bar has a Grim Day poster.
  • One of Cerberus's personality questions asks about "the kind of eldritch horror you'd date" after you publish a visual novel about dating eldritch horrors.
  • Some profiles are obvious spoofs of either real life people or fictional characters.
    • Auteur game designer Hijimo Kodea produces games that are still successful despite being increasingly incomprehensible.
    • You can find a profile for Mark F. Plier. In this universe, he's an engineer and aspiring film director.
    • A physicist named Gordy Freiheit can show up on your list. He's fond of opening crates with his crowbar, but got fired after breaking an ampoule of a much-anticipated "HL/3.0" compound.
    • On day 9 when you're taking over for the plant division, one of the possible plants you have to manage is a plant named Lisa, a companion to a photography student.
    • You can find a profile for "Luigi Wah", who enjoys racing around on his forklift. Waluigi himself has an excavator as a kart in Mario Kart DS, while the forklift racing might be a reference to Ryo Hazuki occasionally using forklifts to race in both Shenmue and Sega Superstars.
    • A Scientist obsessed with bringing people back to life by stitching corpses together, if you kill them; the monster shows up on your list the next "day".
    • A housekeeper named Lee Yong stays put in a house after the last owner perished, and is employed by the new owners. She is secretly housing her spouse in a secret room in the attic, and is also deathly allergic to peanuts.
    • A fantastical novel author by the name of Terry Hatchett still attempts writing despite deteriorating health, and has also made large donations to health research trusts.
  • A bizarre woman shows up who is apparently a cultist with her being the only member; what does this cult do? Praise the sun.
  • A small movement of people on your list begin wondering if they are actually living in an artificial reality.
  • When you commence a New Game Plus, the abbreviated cutscene is given a narration:
    Lemon, spice, and human eyes. These were the ingredients chosen to make the perfect little Grim.
• Sliding Scale of Free Will vs. Fate: Discussed with Fate. Free will does exist and it is their decisions which ultimately bring them to Grim's desk. At the same time it has definite limits due to each human being a very small part in the overall calculations of the Departments.
• Skull for a Head: The only heads you can pick for Character Customization when first beginning the game are skulls, and some of the head customization options are also skulls.
• Smoking Is Not Cool: Buying a smoker's head for the mirror will have Mortimer comment on how deadly smoking is, and the names of the portraits are similarly unflattering.
• So Proud of You: Chimaera regularly pesters you to take the rebellious route and usurp Fate's role, but if you've thwarted Fate's plans without their assistance, they have nothing but praise for you.
• Status Buff: Cerri's drinks all enhance different stats for when people are saved or killed. This applies to both positive and negative changes, with milk returning them to default parameters.
• Story Breadcrumbs:
  • Reading profiles and the phone news updates gives hints about current events in the mortal world. These can be useful in guiding choices on who to kill or spare.
  • Sparing or killing certain individuals can trigger a small story arc to play out across multiple days in other profiles. For example, sparing one vagrant obsessed with sin will cause him to build a cult whose members and relatives end up on Grim's desk.
• Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum: The series of escalating disasters throughout the game are the result of Fate attempting to end his own existence by killing off the entirety of Earth. With his purpose for existing gone, he would be destroyed.
• The Three Certainties in Life: What the game is named after. At one point Fate even references the quote.
• Title Drop: During a conversation Fate has with you about a previous reprimand he'd gotten, specifically, for taking an unannounced vacation, and even thinking of taking a vacation to begin with, he tries to remember the phrase they used regarding the two certainties in life, and you're given the option to complete it with the appropriate phrase... or a selection of incorrect ones.
• To Be Lawful or Good: You will frequently find yourself at a dilemma — will you defy Fate's instructions for the betterment of the world, or will you kill off important individuals to ensure you are paid? The game also gives you the option to be Chaotic by killing or sparing the right people (or number of people).
• Too Awesome to Use: The Lethean Obliviator, which lets you erase your live/die decisions, vanishes after use. You can purchase a new one from Mortimer, but he'll only restock after you use your current one, and its price increases with each purchase.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: On Day 9, the Plant Department has some issues and you end up handling the workload for them.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Sparing or killing the wrong person can lead to catastrophic results. Sometimes you can avoid it if you're attentive to news articles or profile details; other times it's only visible in hindsight.
• The Usurper: In one ending it is possible for Grim to kill Fate and usurp his role.
• Video Game Caring Potential: You can opt to spare more people than you're instructed to, and if you're attentive to the profiles, you can kill and spare the right mixture of people to make the world a better place. You get an achievement if the world improves enough under your supervision.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: You can be very callous and go on a killing spree. You're also given some bloodthirsty dialogue options if that's up your alley. The game's Story Breadcrumbs system with the profiles can lead curious players to spare or kill risky people just to pull at an interesting plot thread to see what happens.
• Villainous Breakdown: If Grim successfully thwarts his plan, Fate will grow increasingly disconsolate as the days pass and periodically rant about things not going right.
• Wham Shot:
  • The earliest one happens on the sixth day: You're handed a whopping eight profiles and you are instructed to kill six.
  • When Chimaera starts intervening on the 11th day, you're given a red, modified profile, telling you to defy your orders and kill everyone.
  • If you decide to follow all of Chimera's instructions, on the final day, you are given Fate's profile.
• Worldbuilding: The Halloween Update added Cerberus's Den, where other Grims, the Archivist, and a ghost hang out. Talking to them gives more details about the characters and the world they inhabit.
• Year Outside, Hour Inside: Each "day" for the Grim represents significantly more time for the humans outside. While the Grim sleeps, days, weeks, or months can pass for the rest of the world until a "day" arrives for them to judge.
• You Do NOT Want To Know: At the end of the fifth day, you get to learn a little more from Fate that there are myriad departments, even for children, animals, and plants. Fate promptly tells you not to ask about the plant department.
• Zombie Apocalypse: A possible cause for humanity's destruction in one of the special apocalypse events.

---